Ominous Tour GPs

12/5 - My Love For Reading Keeps Growing (Review)



12/7 - All That's Written (Ten's List)

So, first reaction when you see:

1. blue  -  Sky
2. red - Scarlet
3. green - Trees, hope, freedom
4. violet - Satin
5.orange - My son,
6. white - Peace
7. black - Midnight
8. pink - Perfume
9. grey - Rolling Fog
10. yellow - Daffodils


12/9 - Kelly P's Blog (Excerpt)

Order of the Seers Ch. 4 Run (some strong language included.)

     I can’t believe I left my gun at home. It was all Liam could think as he observed them watching him and Lilli as they tried to move smoothly and quietly out of the crowded restaurant.
It’s probably a good thing. Mr. Lam and his customers wouldn’t appreciate blood in their noodles if this came to a shootout.
     As they cleared the restaurant doorway, Liam took in their familiar surroundings, looking for an escape route. Every corner of Chinatown was dense with colors, people, hot food carts, vendors, and a million other things he’d barely registered when he entered the restaurant twenty minutes ago. Liam and Lilli had come all this way, 4,458 miles total, and the Guild had finally found them. The two men who had come to destroy what was left of the Knight family were less than fifteen feet away.
     In his peripheral vision, Liam could see the excitement growing on Jason’s face as he and Miguel remained locked in their stare, assessing each other as prey and hunter. Miguel knew enough not to underestimate Liam. Without any real experience, this young man had managed to elude or kill everyone they had sent to find them. In the course of his pursuit, Miguel learned that Liam had become an exceptional marksman, with advanced training in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. Liam looked at Miguel with all the bravado of a young man ready to be tested and determined not to lose. If Miguel didn’t know his own strengths, he might have been intimidated, but the emotion just wasn’t in him. Liam was a boy; Miguel was a killer. In Miguel’s mind, there was no comparison.
     Feeling confident, Miguel finally broke Liam’s gaze to assess the girl holding his hand. He noted with appreciation that Lilli had grown-up significantly from the pig-tailed photos he and Jason were able to piece together. Though her body had remained small and somewhat boyish for a girl of fifteen years, she had lost most of the plumpness in her cheeks. Her features had become sharper, but still lovely. Her hazel eyes were lighter than the pictures told. Wider, he thought, and hardened from a combination of time and loss. The dye that covered her long, naturally dirty blonde hair in shades of hot pink and pale yellow, along with the multiple rings and cuffs she sported on her hands and wrists suited her, he thought, in a punk-rock kind of way. Though he assumed she was afraid, he noted with curiosity that she was not holding her brother’s hand as tightly as he would have expected and that disturbed him. She’s only fifteen. Can she see the outcome? He wondered as he took in the lack of tension in her face. She feels safe, even now.
     What they didn’t know was that she hadn’t seen them coming, couldn’t see a damn thing beyond her brother out of the corner of her eye. But she didn’t need to see more than him to know that this was the safest place that she could be. Whatever happened to them now, they would be together. They would either escape and survive, or fight and die. She would not be taken away from the only family she had left.
     Liam’s grip was light and gentle as their fingers intertwined. They had practiced this. As soon as his pinky moved down the inside of her own, she knew what that meant. Run, Lilli. Run left.
     “Now!” Liam shouted as he cinched Lilli’s hand tightly and sprinted left into the crowd. As they ran into the opening that Liam had been looking for, he could feel Lilli already beginning to lag behind. Though her heart and mind were willing, trying to keep up with him, her feet were slow, her legs incapable of matching his speed. As they cut right into the farmer’s market, Liam risked a glance behind him.
     S***!
     He could feel panic spreading through his chest as he realized that if they kept their current pace, they would be caught within seconds.
     Liam couldn’t remember when he grabbed Lilli and moved her onto his back. He only registered the relief he felt that she was still so light and fit so easily around him, like she had when they played piggyback as children. The minute she was securely in place, he could feel his body surge with adrenaline as he pushed himself harder and faster through the crowd. The burn in his lungs and legs felt familiar and comforting, like thirty suicide drills on a hot summer’s day. Basketball in the winter, track in the spring - he’d never felt so grateful for the rigorous schedule he used to keep as he made a sharp left and narrowly missed the rice ball stand right in front of them. His combat training compelled him to maintain a zigzag pattern as he ran, just in case they decided to shoot, but he knew it was unlikely.
     The Guild hadn’t survived this long without being discreet, he thought, as he reminded himself that witnesses were one of the advantages of living in a densely populated area. Their chase was already eliciting looks of surprise, curiosity, and concern from bystanders.
     So he ran and they chased him, without any clear plan of where he was going beyond away. After twenty seconds of running through the bitter taste of death-so-close in his mouth, the sound of Lilli’s voice began to slowly register.
     Left here, then straight.
     Her voice was like the wind on his face, recharging and cooling him at the same time. As Lilli’s voice laid out their route of escape, Liam could feel himself relax into his role as carrier.
     Seamlessly, they worked in unison.
     Her voice. His legs.
     Action-Reaction.
     Left - shoulder-pivot
     Duck - waist-bend
     Second light - eyes shifting upwards.
     Her voice seemed to obscure everything but where she wanted him to go—faces blurred, street signs merged and faded.
     Behind him, he heard the frustrated shouts of their pursuers.
     “She must be helping him. Faster!” Miguel growled, even as the sound of their voices came from farther and farther away.
     Through the blue doors on your right, Liam. Stop inside. Liam complied immediately.
     The room was dark and dusty. The storage room to a restaurant, Liam guessed as he locked the door behind him and turned to see large cardboard boxes with bright red Chinese characters stacked high throughout the room. The walls were covered in corrugated steel with exposed beams along the ceiling. Liam moved to the farthest corner of the small room and faced the door, standing with Lilli still perched on his back.
     For the first time since they left Mr. Lam’s restaurant, Lilli used her voice.
     “You can put me down now. They won’t find us here.”
     Instead of obeying, Liam shook his head and tightened his grip on her legs. When he was sure she would stay in place, he brought out the pocketknife that he always carried in his right front pocket and flicked it open.



12/10 - Cu's Ebook Giveaways (GP)



12/11 - The Wonderings of One Person (GP)



12/13 - The Real Deal (Review)



12/15 - Nocturnal Predator Reviews (Excerpt)

Order of the Seers Ch. 6: Chicago

     “From what I’ve heard, Vancouver couldn’t do anything with her. So why is she here? You know she’s unstable.” The low tenor of Andreas Menten’s voice barely masked his growing irritation.
     “How could you let your…infatuations jeopardize what we are building here? I don’t understand you.”
     “Marcus will control her,” was Crane Le Dieu’s only reply as his eyes followed Alessandra’s procession across the courtyard of their compound. Even with her head down and the awkward coverage of the ugly brown coat she wore, he could still make out the subtle curves of her body as she moved. Andreas’ voice was less than a faint echo in Crane’s ear as his mind filled with images of Alessandra bound, gagged, and screaming—all for his pleasure. “She would be so… delicate,” he mused, as he traced the ridge of his top lip with the pad of his index finger.
     “Crane!” Andreas shouted. “For God’s sake, get a hold of yourself! I’m not about to let your sick games threaten all the work I’ve done to create the Quorum we have here. Six of the best Seers anywhere in the world and we have them, despite the Guild’s constant monitoring. And why? Because I’ve been careful! I’ve been careful while you’ve been… reckless!” Andreas was irate as he slammed his fist onto the polished surface of his desk before continuing.
     “And for what, because you can’t find more suitable outlets for your baser instincts? We’ve already lost one because of you. If that happens again, I’ll take those knives you like to play with so much and cut you myself.”
     Somewhere in the middle of Andreas’ rant, Crane managed to tear his eyes away from Alessandra. When the pitch of Andreas’ voice finally disrupted the scenarios he had been playing out in his mind, Crane turned from the window toward his colleague and friend of over twenty years and sighed. “Andreas, you’ve always been so dramatic…and crass. I told you what happened with Natasha was…” Crane hesitated for a moment as he tried to control the smile that threatened to expose him, “...an accident.”
     Andreas could only scoff at Crane’s thinly veiled excuse. “That ‘accident’ cost us a Seer and it took more than a little covering up to hide it from the Guild. I’m not going out on a limb for you again.”
Before Andreas could continue, they were interrupted by his assistant, Christof, as he entered the library.
     “Forgive me, but Marcus is ready for you, sir.” As Christof addressed Crane, Andreas stared at each of the two men with a suspended expression of disgust and confusion.
     “What the hell is going on here?”
     “You see, Andreas,” Crane interrupted casually, “despite what you think, I am always prepared. Bring him in, Christof.”
     Marcus Akida was always a sight to behold whenever he entered a room. Even though he was given the same dose of Luridium every two weeks, like all the other Seers, Marcus was the only one who showed an ability to resist some of its most common side effects. Luridium was developed and used exclusively by the Guild for two main purposes. The first was to establish and maintain the calm and passive demeanor of the Seer. The second was to create a reliable and mobile interface with the cerebral cortex and physiological functioning of each Seer. With the right equipment, the metallic properties of the drug could be used to track everything from heart rate to audiovisual impulses. It also had the added benefit of acting as a built-in tracking device.
     These metallic properties also made Luridium highly toxic. The extraordinarily resilient immune systems that were present in all Seers made them able to tolerate the drug that would have killed a normal human in a matter of months. It was this resistance to Luridium’s lethal side effects that caused the Seer immune system to expel the drug from their bodies every fourteen days, necessitating the two-week dosing schedule.
     Once a Seer had been on the drug for a month, a strong dependency developed, creating severe withdrawal symptoms if a Seer went for more than three weeks without a dose. It was the prolonged and constant exposure to the drug that created the loss of pigmentation in the skin, hair, and eyes, making them hypersensitive to the sun. Their features - the ash blonde hair, the cataract-like film over the eyes, the chalky pallor of the skin, and the long red robes they wore to protect them from the sun - were known throughout the Guild as the mark of a Purified Seer. This was true of everyone except Marcus.
     Though he had the typical ash blonde hair and clouded eyes, his skin shone with the same ebony brilliance that it had the day he was captured from his small village in Tanzania. At a lean and muscular 6’4”, cloaked in the heavy red robe of the Seers, he was at once angel and demon; beautiful and terrifying.
     To the Guild, he was their archangel. Marcus was widely known as one of the most powerful Seers the Guild had ever come across. To Crane and Andreas, he was the crown jewel in their Quorum - their prized possession.
…….

     “You called, Crane? How can I be of service?”
     “Ah, Marcus,” Crane smiled fondly. “You are such a comfort to me, always so willing to help. We have a new Seer who has come to us. She is very…emotional during our visioning process and she needs some help—your help, I think, to control this. My hope is that you will be able to strengthen her focus.”
     “I will do my best,” Marcus answered in his most sincere baritone.
     “I know you will.”
     Crane smiled indulgently at Marcus before turning and waving his hand toward Christof, who immediately disappeared to retrieve his charge. Anticipating Christof’s return, Crane walked quickly to the coat closet to retrieve the red cashmere cloak that he had custom-made for Alessandra.
     As they waited, Marcus kept his eyes on the patterns of the blue and white Oriental rug beneath his feet. He had seen the robe Crane had commissioned for his new Seer and was already deeply disturbed by the way Crane fingered the seam that connected the robe’s hood to the body of the garment. He prayed that this new Seer was as powerful as he had foreseen. They would need to build their bond quickly if she was to escape the plans Crane had for her.
     Just as Marcus began to fear he might lose the battle he was waging to keep his growing unease from showing on his face, Christof entered the room behind a demure figure dressed in a dirty brown wool coat that exposed the frayed edges of her denim overalls. Her long, thick hair fell in pale yet lustrous contrast to the drabness of her outfit. Her eyes, like Marcus’, stayed fixed on the ground.
     “My dear, who has you in such a state? Come. There is no need for a beauty like you to wear such rags,” Crane declared as he rushed across the room to stand before her.
     He balanced her new robe in his left arm as he reached for the dingy brass buttons of her too-small coat. Marcus glanced up just in time to see Alessandra recoil from Crane’s touch.
     She knows. She understands already, he thought with approval.
     “Don’t be afraid, dear. I won’t…” Crane smiled then as he thought about the lie he was preparing to tell. He was about to continue when Alessandra’s head suddenly snapped up to meet Crane’s gaze. Her mouth fell open in what he guessed was either shock or terror. Moments of silence passed between them as he wondered vaguely which of the plans he’d had for her had caused the trembling of her lips. The movement distracted him, made his smile broaden as he took in the details of her beauty - the way the soft pink flesh on the inside of her mouth hugged her bottom teeth, the cream of her skin hovering just below the film of her outer dermis, and her veins betraying their exact location just under the skin on her neck.
     Unconsciously, Crane’s hand rose up on its own to wipe the lone tear that was making its descent from the corner of her eye. She was afraid. She was afraid of him, and he was in love with her fear.
     “Oh, my love…” Crane murmured.
     For Andreas, the sight of Crane moving toward Alessandra as if he was both charm and conjurer dragged his thoughts back to the scene he had witnessed just over a month ago—of Crane basking below a body suspended and ruined by his skilled, brutal hands.
     Andreas would never forget the enraptured look on Crane’s face as he smoothed the running blood over his cheeks with his eyes closed and his head moving slowly back and forth in ecstasy. Andreas had not feared any man before that moment, before he saw evil revealed to him in the face of a friend. Afterward, he tried to recover his indifference, but it would not return. The nature of what he understood his relationship with Crane to be had shifted from a partnership among ambitious equals to a tenuous arrangement between man and beast.
     Andreas’ body reacted with violent revulsion as he tried to remain a passive bystander as Crane’s fingertips shadowed the curve of Alessandra’s cheekbone. Not again, he thought as his body gave voice to his rage. For his own self-preservation, he needed to get Alessandra away from Crane. He could not be a witness again.
     “Crane! Stop this!” Andreas roared. “Give her to Marcus now!”
     Despite Andreas’ words, Crane was still transfixed, imagining all the horrors she must have seen and hoping - hoping that he could recreate the look she’d just had, over and over again, but he managed to nod his head as he handed the robe to Christof.
     “This is for you, my dear,” Crane whispered as he backed away from Alessandra excitedly. “You are a part of us now.”



12/22 - Colorimetry (GP)


Hanna: All right Marcus, just state your name and tell us where you’re from.  Relax and look right into the camera.

Marcus: Ok.  Ah…Hello.  My name is Marcus Joseph Akida and I am from the city of Arusha in Tanzania.

Hanna: Tell us a little about your life, before you encountered the Guild.

Marcus: Yes.  I was an elementary school teacher and healer within my community.  My wife, Evelyn was a nurse.  We traveled together to rural areas within my country, providing health training and medicine, establishing schools.  My wife and I, we had a son named Joel.

Hanna: What happened to them? Can you tell us?

Marcus: They were burned to death, right in front of me, along with everyone in the village where we lived.  The men who came killed over 72 people that day, innocent people, just to get to me. It is an unimaginable thing to witness.

Hanna: Who did this?  Who murdered the people in your village?

Marcus: The Guild, or the United World Organization, whichever you prefer, they are one and the same.

Hanna: How do you know this?

Marcus: Because, after they slaughtered my wife and child – our entire village, I was taken to a facility.  They call it a Purification Center.  I was tortured there and given a drug called Luridium so that they could access and use my ability to see the future for their own gain.  I was held captive, isolated, tortured, then used by them for more than 13 years.  I have personally seen Guild leaders, Crane LeDieu, Andreas Menten and other prominent members of the UWO, herd new Seers into these facilities like cattle.

For some reason and I’m not sure why, my body was able to resist some of the most common effects of the Luridium.  Maybe it’s because I was older, almost 33, when they took me. Most Seers are very young – thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year olds – when they are captured.  I’ve seen it more times than I would ever care to count.  They barely know who they are.  I think the Guild captures them that young, because they are able to break them a lot easier than someone who is older.    Most Seers lose their memories of themselves, their families, everything.  By the time the purification process is over, most Seers that I have seen are barely aware of anything.  They do what the Guild requires without question or resistance.  The Luridium holds them in a waking sleep almost.  Fortunately, I was able to keep my memories, my awareness of the environment around me.  I kept this a secret of course, so that I could observe those around me and learn as much as I could.  It allowed me to piece together some of what was really happening and why.

Hanna: But the Guild claims that the Seer anomaly creates deep psychosis in the people who have it.  That the ability actually drives you insane, that is why you have been removed from society.  They claim that the “Purification Centers” as you call them are actually rehabilitation facilities. Can you speak to that?

Marcus: You know, I vaguely remember hearing stories about this before I was captured, but it seemed a world away from the people I knew and the world I lived in.  I am a bit ashamed to say that I honestly didn’t give it much thought.  I had always had a certain way of knowing things.  My grandmother had it, too.  I think now that she could have been a powerful Seer, but where I grew up, with the old ways of thinking, she was just a healer - a gifted person in my community. There was nothing unusual about that where I am from.  Now I wonder, what she might have been if the full extent of her gift was recognized and nurtured.

To answer your question, I understand why people believe that story.  It is easy to dismiss what you don’t understand, what seems strange and far-fetched.  All I can say is that, as I speak to you now, I am sure that I am in my right mind.  What happened to me, or any other Seer, is not because we are crazy or a danger to anyone.  What happened to me, to every single Seer now enslaved by the Guild, is because we have a gift, a power that they exploit to stay in control.  It is as simple as that.

Hanna: What do you want people to know.  What should they understand after watching this?

Marcus:  I want people to know that they are not immune to the oppression of the Guild and that their loved ones are not safe as long as the Guild has the power to do what they have done to me and thousands of others.  You or someone you love dearly, your child, your nephew, your sister, may be a Seer.  Any person could be a Seer.  You would never know this because the Guild tests each child for the genetic marker at birth.  The results are kept secret, until the Guild is ready to claim them, usually in their teenage years.  When they come, they will kill everyone who is closest to that Seer.  They will make them watch you die so that they believe they are broken and alone.

I tell you this, not to scare you. I tell you this because it is true. If you have someone in your life that has begun to show unusual abilities, please do not be afraid of them.  They will not harm you.  The ability to see the future is frightening.  It is difficult to manage the sensations and knowledge of seeing two realities at once, but it will not drive them crazy.  They need your help to make the transition.  Do not be afraid.  Help them. Protect them. Protect each other from the Guild.


12/24 - Dalene's Book Reviews (Review)